The World of No Rest for the Wicked

When I started NRFTW, I had no idea it took place in a pre-existing supernatural world. I’m not going to get into all the known settings and entities that exist in my head, but when it comes to that world specifically, it’s inarguably the biggest, oldest, and one that I understand the best. You could say I live there. 🙂

So, what do I mean when I say it exists in a world I’d already created? In NRFTW, there’s a shifter in plain sight. I hint at it, but I don’t talk about it, because one, Tatum doesn’t know that this person is a shifter, and two, it has nothing to do with her story. But that was my first clue that the world of NRFTW took place in the same world as my vampires. Because there’s only one world in my head where shifters exist. It’s kind of funny what our brains whip up subconsciously. ^_^

The best news about this is that it helps me with my Chaos series (there’s a shifter in one of those books, as well). I’ve been stuck on that thing for about seven years, at least. And knowing it’s in the same world as NRFTW helps so much I could cry. 😀

Anywho, I made all of these connections accidentally, so I’m far from being a master world-builder. I didn’t know anything was related until I was brainstorming the current work-in-progress. One “No Peace for the Weary.” 🙂

The idea started simply enough: girl goes on a date with a nightcrawler.

From there, it sprouted into: girl goes out with a nightcrawler and there’s also some crazy woman who wants something from her.

I was stuck on this, I’ll admit. Haha. For a good year, not only did I think the girl in question was someone else, I couldn’t make progress with this because I didn’t know what that crazy woman wanted!

Fast forward to me trying to settle on a project this year. I ask myself what I want to write, and I say something disturbing I won’t repeat because it’s a spoiler. LOL! The rest of that day, I keep thinking about that woman and how she seems familiar. It was the energy. It reminded me of a character from years ago. Someone with purple eyes. Same someone who was pulling strings in my last vampire novel, and I was like…”Oh, no. That’s going to take everything off the rails!”

But going off the rails is fun when you’re writing…just don’t like, wreck yourself.

But I started holding that old vamp story up to my idea for “No Peace for the Weary,” and everything just made sense. If the crazy purple-eyed chick was the same crazy lady in “No Peace,” then I knew exactly what she wanted! I knew how everything fell into place. And for the first time, I could see why my old vampire series was such a great big mess. Yeah, I love the thing, but I was trying to write a four book series! And I didn’t even want to do it! Madness.

The biggest problem, though, is that I referred to it as a vampire series, effectively limiting myself to whatever threads had to do with them. But with the way my brain works, if I was going to write any kind of series or sequel to anything, it would be of the companion variety, because I lean that way naturally. I have no idea how many of my ideas take place in this larger, supernatural world, but it makes so much sense. It explains why I was so familiar with the underground that I didn’t realize how cool it would be to other people. It also explains why so many of my ideas take place in the same general area. And it’s never even crossed my mind. #brainsareawesome 🙂

Here’s a shiny quote from Happier.com that’s kind of relevant in a round about way. ^_^

That’s cool! I love having stories that are part of a bigger world–because when you’re a romance novel junkie, a lot of single-title romance tend to be in series that are in the same imaginary universe, even though the stories have different lead characters.

I do love how our brains come up with all these marvelous ideas! I do hesitate to label my work anything too, because I do go off on other things. Luckily fantasy has lots of room for the brain to roam! 🙂